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Anon takes an exam
(sh.itjust.works)
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this post was submitted on 03 Apr 2025
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I never really understand what the point of grading on an average is. An individual's ability isn't measured against everyone else's ability is measured against the test. So then to take that and change the grade to something else based on what is essentially arbitrary doesn't seem to have any point except to make it look like more people passed than didn't.
It wasn't a regular thing in my class; the professor just realized he had screwed up and made the exam way too difficult. I agree that doing it for every exam is a bad idea.
Most professors don't have the time or desire to actually make a good test so the curve is a way to compensate for the poor test. There is more pressure in the current day to also pass more than may deserve it as well.
A class of 200 students performing much worse than the last class is very unlikely. 200 Students is enough to make even small differences statistically significant.
A single test being much harder than the last test is much more likely, since it isn't an averahe of 200, it's a single datapoint.
That's why if this semester's class performed much worse than last semester's, you can assume it's because of the test, not the students.
Or more likely, instruction was lacking and didn't cover the material on the test properly.